Olympic Cities: Booms and Busts

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Lake Placid, USA (Winter, 1980)

Boom or Bust? Bust

The Winter Olympics of Lake Placid was hit by a number of problems. Poor planning of ticket sales (people could not buy unsold tickets as they needed a ticket to get to the ticket sales area) and transportation and accommodation difficulties meant that there was a narrowly missed catastrophe in getting visitors to the Games. A state of emergency had to be declared and more buses and drivers imported to shuttle people to the Olympic venues. However this was not the only bailout needed. The Games ended with an $8.5 million deficit and the Lake Placid Olympic Committee drafting bankruptcy papers; only a last minute intervention from the State of New York saved it from financial disaster.